Requiring doctors to remain pillars of integrity while chipping at their moral underpinning is an odious contradiction. Yet that is what the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario proposes with a draconian new policy that tramples on conscience and religious rights.

The Canadian Medical Association has passed a new policy on conscience rights that supports a doctor’s right to choose whether or not to help patients commit suicide in jurisdictions where it may become legal.

Doctors hold a favoured place in society because they are seen as models of compassion and integrity. They are admired as healers and moral leaders, virtuous people, widely respected. If you can’t trust your doctor, who can you trust?

TORONTO - Silence from the public could cost Ontario’s doctors the right to deny non-emergency procedures, prescriptions and referrals which they morally oppose, warns the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute.